HD KSOE to participate in EU's largest hydrogen transportation project

South Korea's HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering  (HD KSOE), the shipbuilding holding company of HD Hyundai Co. , is participating in the European Union's largest research and innovation program to develop hydrogen-based maritime transportation technology.

The company announced on Wednesday that it has formed a consortium with a total of 14 European academia-industry institutions, including the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) and the Dresden University of Technology, and will begin joint development of large-scale liquid hydrogen cargo tank technology starting next month.

HD KSOE consortium has been selected for Horizon Europe, the EU's largest research and innovation funding program, and will receive financial support from the European Commission.

The consortium plans to invest a total of 10 million euros ($10.7 million) in research funds over a period of four years to develop a 160,000-cubic-meter-class liquid hydrogen cargo tank.

HD KSOE, which has secured the most liquefied gas carrier orders worldwide, will be responsible for the conceptual and basic design of the liquid hydrogen cargo tank, which is the key focus of this project.

In addition to global classification societies such as ABS, engineering companies like Hydrus and TWI are actively participating in this consortium, and KSOE expects synergies to be created with domestic research institutions and companies in areas such as design, production and risk assessment.

Through the implementation of this project, KSOE expects to secure the core technology for hydrogen cargo tanks and set global standards.

Write to Jae-Fu Kim at hu@hankyung.com